It Takes a Village

So, no posts in almost two weeks, but this is worth waiting for. This is an absolute dreamworld come true... I need a ticket to Scotland:

The Ghostvillage Project from Agents Of Change on Vimeo.

ICY and SOT

Simple, perfectly executed and with a powerful message. This is what it's all about right here. Check out how many stencils these guys have in order to execute this project properly:

Kids Love Peace - ICY And SOT - IRAN - TABRIZ from ICY And SOT on Vimeo.

It's All Relative

Artist Profile : WordToMother from Andrew Telling on Vimeo.

Hensethename

Peeping Tom

More music, more brilliant artists:

Beck and Charlotte Gainsbourg

Beautiful and bizarre. Beck has been one of my favorite artists for so long now. This video collaboration really pulls together a lot of the cutting edge art from this brave new world and some really haunting music.

Charlotte Gainsbourg - Heaven Can Wait from Charlotte Gainsbourg on Vimeo.

International Hip-hop 101:

Mc Solaar... if you don't know, now you know. French rapper MC Solaar has been everywhere and done it ALL.



Orishas, from Cuba are so talented, uniting hip-hop with their cultural roots and touching on many close to home topics.





Rayess Bek is a really talented rapper from Lebanon who performs fluently in Arabic and French and often hammers home strong concepts with political and social themes.

difference is normal - Rayess Bek
Uploaded by kodwael. - Explore more music videos.

Spaceman:

This is just really subtle, simple and beautiful. Exactly the kind of thing I want to work towards doing in the very near future.

Spaceman20 from ParticleWave on Vimeo.

Air and...

La Demme D'Argent by Air with slo-mo video of the San Fran cityscape circa 1906... I don't even really know what it is about this I found most captivating, but I'm into it.

REVOK ARRESTED!!!!

THIS IS CRAZY! Check out the fifth paragraph... Suspicion of possessions of tools for vandalism? For real?

The LA Times reports:

“A reputed tagger who was paid $1,000 to be a featured ‘guest artist’ at a self-described graffiti art store was arrested at the downtown store this weekend after authorities found him carrying spray tips, which are used in tagging, officials said today.

“Jason Williams, 32, who was on probation and goes by the name REVOK, was appearing Sunday as the guest of honor at the 33rd Graffiti Art Store, said Sgt. Augie Pando of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The store was exhibiting Montana spray paint, a brand used by taggers, Pando said.

“During a later search of Williams' home, deputies found several hundred paint cans, a police badge and a fire extinguisher, Pando said. They also found a stolen detour sign and digital photos of his graffiti work on his phone.

“’He's being treated as a celebrity artist when in fact he's breaking the law,’ said Steve Whitmore, a sheriff's spokesman.

“Williams was arrested on suspicion of illegally possessing vandalism tools, a counterfeit Los Angeles Police Department badge, and receiving stolen property, the sheriff's department said.

“Sheriff's officials said Williams told them that he earns a living selling T-shirts and prints and said he was paid $1,000 to attend the art exhibit.

“He is being held on $20,000 bail.”

David Choe

33 year old David Choe is of Korean descent and was born and raised in Los Angeles. He dropped out of art school, to become a wandering street/graffiti artist. David completely blows my mind. His ability to do these incredibly fast moving "drawings" as both a finished style of work and as the linework basis for his massive murals and more complex projects is a true inspiration. Having travelled to some of the most dangerous places on earth to work both on the streets and in fine art establishments, David truly walks the walk.



For more info, check him out at:
http://www.davidchoe.com/
http://davechoe.blogspot.com/

Lots of words from Truthout

Taipai, Taiwan — Hourly wages below a dollar. Firings with no notice. Indifferent bosses. Labor brokers that leech away months of a worker's hard-earned wages. A corporate shell game that leaves no one responsible.

Such conditions are widespread at the contract factories cranking out some of the most popular gadgets on the holiday season’s gift lists, according to labor rights activists and workers interviewed by GlobalPost.

Whether it's your cherished iPhone, Nokia cell phone or Dell keyboard, it was likely made and assembled in Asia by workers who have few rights, and often toil under sweatshop-like conditions, activists say.

By the time a gadget reaches Apple's flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City or any other U.S. retailer, it may have passed through the hands of a heavily indebted Filipina migrant worker on the graveyard shift in Taiwan, a Taiwanese "quality control" worker who'll soon be fired without warning, and a young Chinese worker clocking 80-hour weeks on a final assembly line, at less than a dollar an hour.

Recent years have seen a drumbeat of reports on such abuses. In 2006, in an audit following a British media report, Apple found that workers in a factory assembling iPods in China were working excessive overtime hours.

Earlier this year, the Pittsburgh-based National Labor Committee, a nonprofit human rights group, alleged that workers at a supplier to Microsoft, Dell and other brands in Dongguan, China, were clocking mandatory 81-hour weeks, on average. (Dell said in an email that a "corrective action plan" has since been developed after a joint audit of the firm with other customers. A Microsoft spokesperson said it was investigating the supplier firm and would make any "necessary improvements.")

Embarrassed companies have vowed to do better. They've drafted "codes of conduct" for their Asian suppliers, and promised more factory audits to catch abuses.

But here's the problem, say activists: While such codes may be great public relations, they're not working to fix the problem. Worse, the codes permit the big brands to pat themselves on the back, even as workers continue to be exploited in the shadowy world of Asian electronics supply chains.

"These codes of conduct and audits are new tools that every brand will have, and they feel so proud of themselves," said Jenny Chan, a labor rights activist formerly with Hong Kong labor rights group Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM). "But the codes have limits. To see fundamental change, you have to get labor groups involved and gain the trust of workers. Otherwise it's just a cat-and-mouse game between auditors and suppliers."

The problem is compounded by a lack of transparency. Asian electronics supply chains are notoriously murky. Contractors shift orders across borders and between factories and subcontractors, and many major brands treat their supplier list as top-secret information.

That makes it difficult to pin down who's making what for whom and, therefore, difficult to fix blame when allegations of abuse come to light. When a factory catches flak from labor rights groups and negative media coverage, the big customers often cut orders or sever business ties — a surgical strategy that activists say fails to address underlying, systemic problems in the industry.

Apple’s response: “We take corrective actions when required”

Even by the industry's own assessment, its codes are routinely ignored.

In its latest annual report, the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) published results of joint audits in 2007 and 2008. (EEIC members employ some 3.4 million workers. Members include Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard.) It found rampant violations of its code of conduct on working hours and wages and benefits.

Or take Apple's own findings. In its latest "supplier responsibility" update, published in February 2009, Apple found that nearly 60 percent of audited suppliers violated its code of conduct guidelines on work hours and days off.

Other common violations included under-paying for overtime and deducting salary as punishment. And Apple found a few factories that falsified records, employed under-aged laborers and hired workers who had paid recruitment fees exceeding the legal limit.

All of that raises a question: Why aren't the big brands being tougher in enforcing their codes?

Apple insists it is doing a lot. "Our audits are done across all our suppliers," said Apple spokesperson Jill Tan, in a phone interview. "It's a pretty rigorous process, and we take corrective actions as and when required. We audit aggressively, and post all results on our website."

The company's code is a "dynamic document which we continually update," Tan said, and audits are done both by Apple itself, and third-party experts.

Asked how Apple responds to those who say it's hiding behind codes that are ineffective in securing workers' basic rights, Tan said, "It's not just a matter of posturing, we look into this very meticulously. To me, we're pretty open. We don't see how we can provide more information beyond what's already available."

"I'm not sure there are many manufacturers or vendors out there who audit as aggressively as we do," said Tan. "I'm not sure there are many out there who take this as seriously as we do. Have you come across any other companies that provide this much detail in their audits?"

(Apple declined GlobalPost’s request to go beyond the public relations department and interview Bob Bainbridge, the firm's director of social responsibility for suppliers.)

Dell also rejected the idea that industry codes aren't effective. "We take exception to that," said spokesman David Frink. "Given the size and breadth of the global supply chain, full implementation of these important standards is a long-term effort to which Dell is fully committed," the firm said in a later email.

Our investigation

In May, GlobalPost covered reports of labor abuses at just one Taiwan electronics firm believed to supply Apple, Nokia and Motorola at its factories in Taiwan and China. Since then, we’ve interviewed 12 current and former workers at this same company. We heard the following new allegations:

For Taiwanese workers, routine violations of Apple and industry codes of conduct on work hours, days off, overtime, worker complaint mechanisms and the right to organize; For Chinese workers, violations of a major electronic industry group's code of conduct on all of the above, and allegations of under-aged labor; For Filipina migrant workers, "placement fees" far in excess of Taiwan regulations, with fees and deductions amounting to nearly a full year's salary — a "core" violation of Apple's code.
These allegations, which are documented throughout this series, are by no means limited to this one supplier. Taiwan's labor broker system applies to many Southeast Asians who come to work on the island. And labor rights groups have done numerous studies of the scope of the problem.

But the news is not all bleak.

In our reporting, we heard sincere commitments to deal with these issues by frustrated executives who struggle with these complex economic realities. We also learned of a groundbreaking project to improve conditions at a Taiwan supplier for HP that appeared to have excellent results. Though limited in scope, the project offers some degree of hope that the big electronics brands can do more to fix the problem.

This story included reporting from Dongguan, China.

Too beautiful...

This is so amazing. Urban anthropolgy at it's most artistic:

Serge Gainsbourg - animation des graffitis sur 5 ans du mur rue de Verneuil from Arnaud Jourdain on Vimeo.

How to blow yourself up...

WK INTERACT at SUBLIMINAL PROJECTS from Joshua Gibson on Vimeo.

6 Days

So, seriously?: This is really just beautiful:

DJ Shadow - Six Days from lika2008 on Vimeo.

More from...

It's somewhat insane to me that every morning I read arguments over the concept of taxing the rich. How is it possible to make multiple millions of dollars per year and not see the clear fact that you are then gifted with a moral obligation to support your fellow man with some of your excesses? Taxation of the rich (and I'm talking about the truly wealthy) could be a solution to so many of our nation's problems. As the economic divide in this country continues to grow it seems unlikely that there are many other ways we could bridge the gaps.

With the approaching holiday season where so many are likely to blow their lives savings on needless gifts for their insignificant others, here is the aptly named Black Friday:

Restiform Bodies - "Black Friday" from anticon. on Vimeo.

I feel the need with that said to repost this, which has not gotten quite the responses from facebook friends I might have expected:



More later from this member of the resistance. We are assembling, we will convey our message and we will be heard!

Begunagain:

This is some of the illest street art I've seen in a long time and promises to be the inspiration for a lot of what I want to do coming soon...

the cape of good hope from rowan pybus & faith47 on Vimeo.

And this is some illness from some of the many Anticon cats that are currently bumping in my nonstop playlist. This is the lyrical inspiration I seek to break out of the mold that I have too long allowed to force me into patterns...

Themselves - "Oversleeping" in Utah from anticon. on Vimeo.

Here we go as I beginagain to attempt this blog with a more purposeful direction than simply restating bullshit fact about my personal life and instead try to entertain and inform about whatever's on my mind or is of importance to my evolution at that point in time. The focus will remain on street art, poetry, politics, underground hip-hop, skateboarding, etc... but it might go just about anywhere from there.
Viva la collectiv!!!

Another New Beginning

Coming soon...